Cleveland's Michael Bourn is tagged out at home by Texas Rangers catcher A.J. Pierzynski (12) as he tries to score on a fly ball to David Murphy in the first inning during the Cleveland Indians vs. the Texas Rangers major league baseball game at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington on Wednesday, June 12, 2013.

ARLINGTON — The Rangers tried group therapy Wednesday to enliven their depressed offense.

That worked so well the next step may be a séance.

Despite a hitters meeting to discuss the approach at the plate and a little shuffling of the lineup, the Rangers still got the same old — as in this is getting old — results in a 5-2 loss to Cleveland. It was the eighth time in the Rangers’ last 11 games in which the team has scored three or fewer runs.

And it gave the three-game series to Cleveland, which arrived in Arlington with an eight-game losing streak. It was the first time the Indians had won a series in Arlington since 2008. The Rangers scored nine runs in the series, six in winning the first game and three over the next two.

“We have the idea of what we want to do, but sometimes the idea and the execution don’t connect immediately,” said outfielder David Murphy, whose slump may be the deepest on the team.

“Sometimes, it’s just good to get together and talk about it. We know we are struggling. We are not tiptoeing around it. We are addressing it, and we’ll get through it.”

Wednesday’s attempt to get through the slump was to give slumping Elvis Andrus a day off, to keep hot-hitting A.J. Pierzynski in the No. 5 spot and to put Jeff Baker into the lineup against a right-hander.

In place of Kinsler, Jurickson Profar did reach base three times, but Murphy did nothing behind him. Murphy went 0-for-5 to drop his season batting average to .211 and run his current drought to four hits in his last 33 at-bats. Murphy made the final out of the game — with a runner in scoring position. He has one hit in his last 20 at-bats with RISP. The Rangers are hitting just .172 for 87 RISP at-bats in June.

Beyond Murphy, the tweaks to the lineup produced even less. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 and failed in two at-bats with runners in scoring position, including a fly out to center with two on and no outs in the sixth that induced him to tomahawk his bat into the ground. Baker was 0-for-4, including one at-bat with a man in scoring position, and did not get the ball out of the infield.

“What I have is what I have,” manager Ron Washington said of doing anything more to get the offense jump-started. “Sometimes the game flows like this. We just have to fight through it.”

Through the first eight innings, the only thing the Rangers’ offense produced was a homer by Leonys Martin to start the third inning. And lest anybody get any ideas that Martin is hot, it was his first extra-base hit of the month.

By that time, the Rangers already trailed 3-0. And these days that is a significant deficit.

For the second straight start, rookie Nick Tepesch hit a batter to start a rally that created the initial deficit. On Wednesday, it was most definitely a rookie mistake. He hit Jason Giambi with two outs in the second, then allowed a homer to No. 8 hitter Mike Aviles. He allowed three hits in a four-batter span in the third to account for another run. Then, as he started to go through the order a third time, something that has been a tough task for him all season, he allowed a fifth-inning homer to Jason Kipnis and followed a one-out walk of Michael Brantley by allowing a run-scoring double to Carlos Santana.

He didn’t return for the sixth and ended up suffering his fifth loss in his last six decisions. The Rangers are 1-7 in his last eight starts , leading to questions about what the Rangers could do to get him back on track.

“Maybe a little run support,” Washington said. “Maybe if we could score some runs for him in some of those games, it might make a difference.”

Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Catch Evan Grant’s Ranger Reports all season on The Ticket (KTCK-1310 AM) on Tuesdays at 9:35 a.m. with The Musers, Wednesdays at 4:15 p.m. with The Hardline and Thursdays at 2:15 p.m. with BaD Radio.

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